Suicidality crisis among transgender adolescents

The author of a new study in CMAJ says the risk of suicidality among transgender youth, “is really a crisis.”  

Mila Kingsbury and her co-authors found that trans and non-binary teens were as much as 7 times more likely than cishet peers to have thought about or tried suicide. More than half of the trans 15-17 year olds in a nationally-representative Canadian survey said they’d thought about suicide, and about 40% had attempted suicide in their lifetime.

The research entitled Suicidality among sexual minority and transgender adolescents drew its data from the 2019 Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth, a carefully-conducted cross-sectional survey. The researchers used a sub-sample of 6800 15-17 year olds.  

On this episode,  Drs. Blair Bigham and Dr. Mojola Omole discuss the implications of the study’s findings with one author, Mila Kingsbury. They then speak with Dr. Tyler Black, medical director of the pediatric psychiatric emergency inpatient unit at British Columbia Children's Hospital. He discusses the research on transgender teens in the broader context of what’s known about suicide risk amongst adolescents in Canada.

This episode focuses extensively on the issue of suicide.

If you are in crisis:

Call 911 or go to the nearest hospital.

Call the Canada Suicide Prevention Service (available 24/7) at 1-833-456-4566. For residents of Quebec, call 1 866 APPELLE (1-866-277-3553).

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